793.94/1876b: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Japan (Neville)

166. 1. The Department has been giving the most careful consideration to the questions arising from the situation in Manchuria as described in your reports and those from Peiping and elsewhere.

Reports from other quarters, both official and unofficial, contain much more complete data than those emanating from Japan.

The Department has received from the Chinese Chargé d’Affaires, and is now giving consideration to, a note in which it is charged that “in this case of unprovoked and unwarranted attack and subsequent occupation of Chinese cities by Japanese troops” Japan has deliberately violated the Kellogg Pact. “The Chinese Government urgently appeals to the American Government to take such steps [Page 9] as will insure the preservation of peace in the Far East and the upholding of the principle of the peaceful settlement of international disputes.”

The Department is giving the situation and the whole range of possibilities its most careful consideration. It has had three conversations with the Japanese Ambassador and three with the Chinese Chargé, in which the Department has urged cessation of hostilities and a withdrawal from the present situation of danger. It would welcome any comments and suggestions which you may care to make.

2. In response to a communication from the Council of the League of Nations received through the American Minister at Berne, the Department has assured the Council18a that this Government is in wholehearted sympathy with the attitude of the League of Nations as expressed in paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Council’s resolution adopted on September 2219 and that the Department will despatch to Japan and China notes along similar lines.20

Stimson
  1. Conditions in Manchuria, pp. 4, 5.
  2. See telegram, September 22, 1931, sent by the President of the Council to the Governments of Japan and China, League of Nations, Official Journal, December, 1931, p. 2454.
  3. See infra.